Residents of Springfield and Sangamon County snapped up a little more than $4.25 million worth of bonds the city of Springfield sold this week, Mayor Mike Houston said Thursday.

The city sold about $28 million worth of bonds, which will pay for the first phase of a three-year program to improve streets, sidewalks and storm sewers. Overall, there were orders for $73 million worth of the bonds, Houston said.

In an effort to give local residents an opportunity to buy the bonds, the city decided to make them available to retail investors one day before they were supposed to go on sale to institutional investors. Sangamon County residents were given priority.

The retail sale proved to be so popular that no bonds remained for the sale to institutional investors, Houston said.

“As we move forward, certainly we would look to do that again,” he said, adding that it will depend on finding an underwriter for future bond issues that is willing to arrange for a retail presale.

Investors were able to purchase the bonds, which had maturity dates ranging from 2016 to 2029, through nearly a dozen brokerage firms that have a local presence. They were sold in $5,000 increments.

Edwards added that he’d received “numerous calls” from people lacking information.

Houston said the success of Wednesday’s sale shows that those concerns were unfounded.

“I have no idea who they would have talked to,” he said.

Houston said that on Wednesday morning, he called Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he has a brokerage account, and the firm had all the necessary information to assist customers with purchasing the bonds.

The city will repay the bonds with revenue from the half-cent sales tax increase that went into effect Jan. 1.

Plans for the first year of the projected $86.6 million program include repaving 45 miles of asphalt roads and repairing 400,000 square feet of sidewalks.